1. ahead of the pack
2. the elephant in the room
3. the upper hand
4. in the red
5. start off on the wrong foot
6. corner a market

Now complete the following sentences with an expression from the
previous exercise.

1. If we want to stay
, we're going to
have to keep innovating and changing with the times.
2. Unfortunately, our competitors have
. They have a very
large percentage of market share.
3. I'd really appreciate any advice you have for me. I don't
want .
4. We were making good money for the first five years, but
the financial crisis hit us hard and within a year we were
and owed the bank
a lot of money.
5. There is always worry over who will get
in the oil
markets.
6. Everyone made small talk, but nobody spoke about the fact
that people were going to lose their jobs. That was the
.

Match the idiom with the correct definition.

a) when you learn the basics of something.
b) this is when you talk about something that will probably happen.
c) when you start something over again from the beginning
d) perhaps the most effective form of promotion, If something spreads
like this, people hear about it by informal conversation with friends,
family members, acquaintances, etc.
e) this is when something is given without expecting anything in return
f) this means to tell someone that he or she did a good job.

1. back to the drawing board
2. give someone a pat on the back
3. learn the ropes
4. no strings attached
5. safe bet
6. word of mouth

Now complete the following sentences with an expression from the
previous exercise.

1. The original campaign
wasn't successful. We have to go
.
2. We’ve been given some new parachutes to test at no charge
and with . If we
don’t them, we can send them back at no cost to us.
3. In Valencia, a lot of local businesses rely on
to get new
customers.
4. We all gave Pepito
for thinking of
such a great marketing idea.
5. It's that
we’ll have self-driving cars on the roads in 10 years time.
6. I’m starting to
in my new job as personal assistant.